Prudence abounds as Brown delays election decision and Cameron gets back to basics

GORDON Brown yesterday again delayed his decision on calling a snap election as the Conservatives moved to counter his bid to steal their voters by returning to their traditional issues of tax cuts and family values.

The Prime Minister had been scheduled to hold a final war council with close aides yesterday, but the fateful decision has been put back again, perhaps until as late as next week, as Mr Brown waits to see how the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool unfolds.

Jangling Tory nerves still further last night, Downing Street announced that Mr Brown will today give a high-profile speech in the City of London. That sparked speculation in Blackpool that the Prime Minister could confirm an election as soon as today, although Mr Brown's allies have suggested he will not make any announcement until the House of Commons returns next week.

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With more opinion polls yesterday showing Labour solidly ahead of the Conservatives, David Cameron, the Tory leader, attempted a show of defiance by challenging Mr Brown to "stop dithering" and call an election.

But as well as taunting Mr Brown over his apparent indecision, Mr Cameron began to modify his party's message to meet the Labour advance into traditional Tory territory.

In recent weeks, Mr Brown has stepped up his attempts to peel off disaffected Tory supporters, using last week's Labour conference to make a string of right-leaning pledges on crime and immigration.

He has also courted Tory defectors and posed with Margaret Thatcher. But the Prime Minister has deliberately stoked talk of an early election in the hope of forcing the Conservatives to define themselves and their policies in preparation.

As the Tories gathered in Blackpool yesterday, Mr Cameron began to harden up the platform on which his party would contest an election.

Promising selective tax cuts and support for married couples, he publicly distanced himself from some of the most dramatic policy proposals to emerge from his environmental adviser, Zac Goldsmith.

Labour has seized on some of Mr Goldsmith's plans, including mandatory charging for supermarket parking, to play on the concerns of traditional Tories about Mr Cameron's strategy.

In a BBC television interview, Mr Cameron yesterday made clear that the parking plan has no place in Tory policy. He also gave a cool response to plans to levy VAT on domestic flights and ban new airport construction.

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"The right way to handle air travel is to tackle the pollution that flights are responsible for," was all he would say on flight taxes.

And pressed on whether he would call a halt to airport expansion, he replied simply: "This issue should go through the planning system in the right way."

Tory plans that will get Mr Cameron's approval this week include a stamp-duty exemption for first-time home-buyers, and reform of the tax-credit system to leave couples with children as much as 2,000 a year better off.

Keynote speeches from shadow cabinet members this week will also see tough talk on crime, immigration and the armed forces.

The package is intended to reassure core Tory voters tempted to jump ship. Last night, John Bercow, a moderate Tory MP recruited as an adviser to Mr Brown, warned Mr Cameron that a "retreat to the old comfort zone" would still be a disaster for the Tories.

Mr Cameron yesterday said Labour charges of a "lurch to the right" were "nonsense" and insisted he is eager to take on Labour in an election.

"I have always said we should have an early election. We are ready for it, we have the candidates ready in our marginal seats," he said. "We have a very clear and compelling message to people which is that we have got to have real change in our country."

Mr Brown faced a similar challenge from Alex Salmond yesterday. Forecasting the SNP would make big gains from Labour at a Westminster poll, the First Minister suggested Mr Brown may soon have no option but to call an election.

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He said: "I think there is a danger here for Gordon Brown. He has started the speculation, the momentum has grown - he may be about to be hoisted on his own petard, whether he likes it or not."

Mr Salmond added: "Scotland is moving forward and there will be a great theme in this election campaign that we don't want London to start dragging us back again."

• A snap general election this year could trigger an electoral debacle that would dwarf even the fiasco of this year's Scottish Parliament election, the government was told yesterday.

Such a poll would be "the worst in living memory", according to John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators.

He warned that incomplete electoral rolls and laws could cost one million people the right to vote and drive a legal wedge between Scotland and England, where different rules are currently in place for postal votes.

• A snap general election this year could trigger an electoral debacle that would dwarf even the fiasco of this year's Scottish Parliament election, the government was told yesterday.

Such a poll would be "the worst in living memory", according to John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, who warned that incomplete electoral rolls and laws could cost one million people the right to vote and drive a legal wedge between Scotland and England, where different rules are currently in place for postal votes.

• THE conference got off to a shambolic start as a faulty sound system in the Winter Garden delayed William Hague's opening speech by 20 minutes.

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As Mr Hague finally took to the stage, he joked: "Welcome to Blackpool where the air is fresh and the sound is clear."

Labour duly ridiculed the technical cock-up, saying: "The 20 minutes of golden silence from the Tories is the most sense that anyone has heard them utter for months."

• A BEER mat bearing Prime Minister Gordon Brown's face and the caption "disturbingly expensive" has appeared in the Galleon Bar at the Blackpool Winter Gardens.

It is based on the Stella Artois slogan - "reassuringly expensive".

• MIND you, the organisers of the Blackpool conference are in no position to joke about expense.

Each hack covering the meeting is being charged 115 simply for a chair in the draughty press centre, and 150 for internet access.